


Indecent Proposal

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: love_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Wanna fuck?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indecent Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season One. Written for LJ's love_bingo community for the prompt "indecent proposal"
> 
> * * *

"Are they clearing out?" Glenn asks.

When Daryl steps back from the crack in the boards and shakes his head, Glenn slumps back against the arm of the sofa, lets out a breath. "Damnit," he mutters. "It's been, what, an hour?"

"Too close to Atlanta to stop an' forage," Daryl says. "Explosion's still drawin' 'em this way."

"We have no food, Daryl. We need to eat."

"Yeah? Well we still got no food, but now I'm down three arrows an' you lost your damn knife. I ain't good at math but that don't sound like we're comin' out on top, here."

Glenn sighs in exasperation. He can't argue with that logic, and he _did_ try to tell Rick and Shane that it would be rough going hitting a suburb so close to the CDC. But Rick had glanced over at Carl and Lori, at Andrea sitting listlessly on the steps of the RV, and he'd caved. Stupid.

Glenn flops down onto the sofa, waves a hand and wrinkles his nose at the cloud of dust mites that rise up in the air. They were lucky to have found a house that was relatively safe, even though the cupboards are bare. They were lucky to have been able to dart inside without the rest of the walkers spotting them. But the geeks keep coming – not en masse, but in dribs and drabs, as his mother used to say. Enough of them to make making a run for the truck a dangerous proposition.

Now he's frustrated and hungry and, quite frankly, bored out of his skull.

He glances at the coffee table – again. He's already flipped through the months-old copy of Sports Illustrated, even though the only athletes he really knows are the ones who've done video game tie-ins. He's not desperate enough – yet – to look through the Soap Opera Digest. He shifts in his seat, spots a notepad next to the phone on the end table. It's cartoon kittens on a pale yellow background, but beggars can't be choosers.

"Hey," he says, "wanna play tic tac toe?"

Daryl doesn't even bother to look up from where he's sprawled himself on the hardwood. "No."

"Hangman?"

Daryl grunts.

"Pictionary?"

That one earns him a withering look before Daryl turns his attention back to his personal grooming, so Glenn decides to up the ante. He wiggles his eyebrows – even though Daryl can't see him – and leans forward far enough to brush his fingers lightly down Daryl's arm. 

"Wanna fuck?"

He never knew Daryl could move so fast. One moment the guy is lounging against the ottoman, cleaning his nails with his knife… and the next he's on the other side of the room and actually reaching for the door handle, like maybe going outside and facing the walkers is preferable to having this conversation.

"Whoa!" Glenn gets to his own feet quickly, raises a steadying hand. "Okay, dude, don't lose your shit, okay? I just kinda sensed that you were interested in me—"

"Shut up," Daryl grits out without looking around.

"—but then when I was in high school I totally thought Chad Pruette had the hots for me and he was fucking Monica Lecchini that whole time—"

"Shut. Up."

"—and okay, I figured when you gave me that extra helping of squirrel last week it was some kind of weird, like, courting gesture—"

Daryl spins toward him fast enough that Glenn takes a surprised step backward. "Stop fucking talking!" Daryl hisses out.

Glenn shuts his mouth abruptly, removes his cap to swipe a hand through his hair. He's sweating, suddenly, more than can be explained by being trapped in the stuffy little house with its boarded up windows. He runs a hand under his collar before he jams the baseball cap back on his head, aware now that he's stopped filling the room with sound that Daryl has backed himself into the corner, his body stiff with tension, his eyes trained resolutely on the dusty floorboards. The guy looks like a trapped mouse, and the sight of him makes Glenn swallow uneasily. 

"I talk when I'm nervous," Glenn says. 

When Daryl just shoots him a glare, he considers that it would probably be wise to just sit back down and wait silently until the walkers have cleared out of the area. In fact, his best bet would likely be to pretend this whole thing never happened. 

But he's never been particularly smart, and he always bets on the long shot.

"Thing is, Daryl," he says quietly, "I like you, too."

Daryl looks up sharply, eyes narrowed. "Bullshit," he spits out.

The look in his eyes is fierce, but wary. It's the same look Glenn remembers seeing in the neighbourhood stray when he was a kid, the one that always came around looking for scraps. Some of the kids – like him, like his sisters, like his best friend Bernie Vitkosky – used to sneak food outside for the bedraggled thing, risk the wrath of their parents for the sake of handing a couple of pieces of bread to the starving mutt. Other kids used to hold out the food and then snatch it away, try to pull the dog's tail – or worse – instead. The dog never knew who to trust, who was honest and who was just plain mean.

"It's not bullshit," he says.

When he takes a step forward he sees Daryl tense, his spine stiff against the doorjamb. His breath is coming too fast, and Glenn has a brief moment of panic himself, wondering what the fuck he'll do if Daryl starts hyperventilating or really does make a break for the street. But everything in his gut is telling him that if he doesn't do this now, if he lets this moment pass without seizing the reins and at least trying to bring in the horse, he'll never get another chance. He'll never have the nerve to try again. And Daryl will always believe that he was holding out a piece of crusty bread and then pulling it deliberately back, just to make him hurt. 

So he advances slowly, carefully, palms out in a gesture of surrender, never taking his eyes from Daryl's face.

"Don't fuck with me," Daryl warns.

The words almost stop him in his tracks, make him hesitate for a fraction of a second. Make him wonder if he's misinterpreted all the little gestures that Daryl's made over the past few weeks – the way he stands just a little too close when they're talking, or always makes sure to sit next to him by the fire at night. He thinks back on the looks he's caught Daryl giving him when the other man thinks he's not looking, the way he'd dart his eyes back to Merle and get gruff and unresponsive if he saw Glenn looking back. 

No, he's not wrong. 

"I'm not fucking with you," he says. He clamps his lips down on the natural follow-up of _I want to fuck you_ , no matter how much he wants to say it, he much he wants it; knows without a doubt that those words will make Daryl run far and fast and never look back. He keeps moving forward, keeps up his slow steady pace. Gives Daryl plenty of room to move away from the corner by the door. But though Daryl clenches his hands into fists, his arms straining with effort… he doesn't move. Doesn't run. Not even when Glenn has finally reached him, can lift a palm to his chest and feel his heart beating at super-speed beneath his ratty old shirt. 

"I'm not fucking with you," he repeats softly. "I like you. I've liked you ever since you told that stupid story about the chupacabra."

"Ain't stupid," Daryl says, jutting his chin. "Know what I saw."

Glenn shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. I've liked you ever since you told that story, because you knew that other people wouldn't believe you and you told it anyway. I didn't know how to tell you, first because I didn't know how you felt and thought you might punch me in the face, and then because…" He falters, not wanting to bring up his fear of what Merle would do or say; not wanting to reopen any old wounds for Daryl, either. He shrugs instead. "But I'm telling you now. I've seen the way you look at me, Daryl. I don't know where this is going to take us, but… maybe it would be good. Maybe we'd be good together."

He watches Daryl blink, slowly. Watches him digest the information and decide what to do with it. He can still feel the tension in Daryl's body like a coiled spring, knows that any wrong move will end this whole thing before it can even begin. And he finds that he really wants it to begin. He wants to get to know the man that he sometimes sees peeking out from behind the gruff exterior. Wants to be the one to make that guarded look in Daryl's eyes go away and never come back.

Daryl finally releases a shuddering breath. "Ain't never been with no chinaman," he says.

Glenn grins, some of his own tension dissipating, and taps him playfully on the chest. "For the last time, I'm _Korean_ ," he says.

He'd hoped for an answering grin, an acknowledgement that Daryl was trying to lighten the mood. Instead, Daryl swallows, drops his gaze from Glenn's eyes to let them roam over the knick-knacks on the old shelving unit on the wall. He takes another deep breath before he murmurs, "Ain't never been with no man."

Glenn's been thankful for many things in his life – his mother's maeuntang soup, the tight jeans that Gary Joung wore all through the eleventh grade, the knowledge of Atlanta's back roads that saved his life when the city was overrun – but he's most thankful for Daryl's propensity to duck his head and hide his eyes when he's anxious. Because by the time Daryl raises wary eyes back to his, Glenn's managed to wipe every remnant of surprise from his face.

"Then I guess you've got a lot of catching up to do," he says lightly. He wiggles his eyebrows again before stepping back, giving Daryl some breathing room. "And we've got lots of time."

That look is still in Daryl's eye, that look that says he expects the hand holding the bread to suddenly fling a rock in his face. But they really do have time. Time roaming through Georgia in the truck, to talk while searching for a new home. Time on supply runs and hunts, trying to feed their new family. Time at the end of the day around a warm fire.

Glenn wants to hold Daryl's hand. Just press their palms together, feel Daryl's fingers entwined with his, and stare up at the stars. 

That's where they'll start. 

He's going to hold on tight.


End file.
